


The Secret in the Garden

by Sempiternalis



Category: B.A.P
Genre: Alternate Universe - Future, Alternate Universe - Space, Catboys, Developing Relationship, Established Relationship, Grief/Mourning, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Polyamory Negotiations, i don't really know how to tag sorry, it's not bad though there's no angst, not that insisted upon but still
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-21
Updated: 2016-08-21
Packaged: 2018-07-11 16:26:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,442
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7060354
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sempiternalis/pseuds/Sempiternalis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Yongguk comes back home to mourn the loss of a loved one. In the midst of his mourning process, he makes an unlikely discovery.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Secret in the Garden

**Author's Note:**

  * For [fade131](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fade131/gifts).



> Hi! So i have to start by saying that I had quite a tough time until I was able to find exactly what I wanted to write. Before settling onto this one and completing it, I started and abandoned three other stories. It could have been easy for me to just write some plotless smut, since you said you're okay with that, but that's too easy, and I wanted to put some more effort into it. So I came up with this. I wanted to include as many elements from your request as I could, and this is the result. I hope you'll like it and that it came close to your expectations at least a little bit! It's my first time writing something space related, not sure how much I succeeded in doing that, probably it's why I didn't insist much on that aspect. I don't really read scifi, which probably shows, but I've always wanted to write something with a futuristic, spacey vibe.  
> I hope you're not disappointed by the lack of smut. There is some implied, though. I just couldn't go into detail with this one, it would've felt out of place.  
> This brings me to the rating. I absolutely had no idea what to rate this. I was pondering between Teen and Mature, but eventually decided that Teen is best because this story is not that mature. Idk. Someone correct me if you think this story should have a different rating!  
> Okay, now enough with the rambling.  
> Enjoy!

The reflection in the mirror bears no resemblance to him. Yongguk’s eyes search over the cool surface, into the stranger looking back at him. Nothing feels right. They’re wearing the same clothes—black, with no dash of colour—and their facial expressions change at the same time. But his eyes must be deceiving him. None of this feels real. It can’t be real.

“Are you ready?” Daehyun’s voice permeates through the fog in his mind. He looks to his side, where their hands are linked. Yongguk’s long, thin fingers, laced with Daehyun’s shorter, thicker ones. This, what he sees now, feels real. Daehyun’s touch, he’d felt it before, he’d recognize it from a million. Daehyun has a certain warmth to him that nobody else can replicate. It’s hard to explain, but Yongguk just knows it’s him, even with all of his other senses muted.

Their eyes meet and Yongguk wishes Daehyun’s wouldn’t be so sad. He should be happy, that’s a good look on him. When he smiles, his entire being lights up, with crinkled eyes and whiskers on his cheeks, his soft, grayish ears, and his long tail that swings and curls at the tip when he’s delighted. He’s a bundle of joy, he’s Yongguk’s bundle of joy, the ray of sunshine that cracks through his darkness to pull him out of pits of despair. He keeps him sane, he keeps him together. Daehyun should be happy. Now that his eyes are downcast, everything seems so real, unbearable.

“Why do I have to be here?” Yongguk asks in a whisper.

Hands still linked, Daehyun runs his thumb over Yongguk’s knuckles. It serves as a gesture to soothe the other, to bring forth other parts of him, to let him know he’s not alone.

“It’s the reading of your grandfather’s will. You _must_ be here.”

“I haven’t been here in so long…” he trails off with a sigh. “Didn’t want to come back for a reason like this one.”

Daehyun listens. Daehyun cares, he brings his warmth closer to Yongguk.

“He wouldn’t want this,” Yongguk says, looking out the window.

“Maybe he did,” Daehyun tries. “That’s why he left a will. And you’re his grandson and he loved you, so you have to be here.”

The sudden urge to cry washes over him in waves difficult to keep at bay.

 “I don’t care about his wealth!”

Pieces of his carefully constructed façade chip away. He never wants to pretend in front of Daehyun, but in front of everybody else, those who come like leeches around his grandfather’s death, he must if he wants to keep himself sane.

“I never did. I don’t want to be here to see all of my relatives who clearly care only about that. He was alone when he died, Daehyun. All alone. There was nobody by his side. Now, they’re all here, waiting for a piece of his wealth. It’s disgusting.”

He looks at Daehyun. Daehyun is still beautiful, no matter what. Maybe the world hasn’t been entirely ruined if he can still see that.

“Then, imagine it’s just the two of us. Nobody else has to exist but me and you.”

 

***

Yongguk does that. On his seat, next to Daehyun, he ignores everyone else. People try talk to him, but he ignores them after polite replies and they eventually catch on and he is left alone. Alone is what seems he always was in his family.

His parents are here, too. His older sister. He hadn’t seen them in so long, they practically feel like strangers to him. He’s not angry, he’s not bitter, but the only good person in this family has died and it’s such a heartbreaking thing to accept.

Words are spoken around him and he doesn’t care to understand if everyone got what they wanted out of his grandfather’s death. All he hopes is to feel Daehyun’s hand squeeze into his, telling him it’s time to go, and then they will go, back home, to their lives, their friends. A different planet, far away from here. The thought of that settles well in his thoughts when a particular set of words drags him out of his reverie.

“And to my beloved grandson Yongguk and to his lovely Daehyun, I leave my house, the surrounding lands and all of its belongings. The garden out in the back will require special care, a kind that I know only they could provide.”

Daehyun squeezes Yongguk’s hand. Yongguk looks at him. Whispers rise around them, but only one question rings in Yongguk’s mind.

_What does this mean?_

***

“Should we stay here?”

It’s day-3 on planet Xoturn. Yongguk finds himself surrounded by familiar things that now feel strangely foreign to him. He goes through rooms and memories as he walks, sometimes alone, sometimes accompanied by Daehyun. Everything seems to have stayed the same, and at the same time, nothing is as he remembered it.

He prefers to stay outside, then. It’s the only place where he feels he can breathe properly without too many thoughts pressing against his skull. It’s not a place where he is safe from memories that are now bittersweet, but he just feels freer.

Daehyun loves it.

He’s splayed on the green, thick grass. It should need some trimming soon, but Yongguk hasn’t gotten yet to the practical thoughts. The skies are a deep blue here and the sun shines bright and fierce, covering everything in a surreal light. His grandfather had told him that Xoturn is what planet Earth once was—beautiful, luxurious, and life nourishing.

Yongguk missed being here, but he also misses his home with Daehyun. Kolea, the faraway planet, with strange orange skies, two suns and three moons. He chose it at random—he needed a change. The first months were the most difficult, but from then on, it got better. After he had met Daehyun, nothing felt random anymore.

“Do you want us to stay here?”

Yongguk lies on the grass beside Daehyun. He closes his eyes.

“I think I do,” he replies.

“Then we’ll stay.”

***

Day-14 on Xoturn and their friends are starting to reach out to them, asking when they are going to return. Yongguk tells them they will be here for a while. No, he doesn’t know when they will come back. If he is to be frank, he doesn’t know if he wants to ever go back.

Coming back to the house he grew up in is bittersweet. There are so many memories hidden in every nook and cranny, that Yongguk doesn’t know if he will ever be able to live here without being haunted by them and feeling like bringing them back, but being unable to.

Like right now, when he opens the box of antique airplane models he used to build with his grandfather as a child. He picks them up with trembling hands and his vision blurs. It takes for the first teardrop to fall for him to start crying like that time so long ago when he had first lost a being he cared about and his grandfather ran soothing hands through his hair to calm him down.

This time, Daehyun’s arms wound around him with no questions asked, no words. His face is buried against Daehyun’s neck and he cries as he feels Daehyun’s fingers in his hair, scratching at the back of his head. He clings onto him and wishes to never let go, to stay like this until everything in the world is right again.

“I made dinner.”

Daehyun offers simple words as Yongguk wipes at his cheeks and Daehyun’s hands are still around his waist. Yongguk has a unique way of dealing with his feelings, one that Daehyun had come to accept over time. Yongguk does not need people telling him he can break down, too—he knows it. All he needs is someone not to judge him when he does so, someone to help him make sense of the scattered pieces that remain after he picks himself up.

“I’m not hungry.” Though his stomach is empty, food doesn’t taste the same anymore.

“Yes, you are,” Daehyun decides and leaves the room with a sway of his tail.

Yongguk allows a small smile to himself.

He thanks the Universe for Daehyun.

***

“He included my name, too. In the will. Your grandfather included my name,” Daehyun says as they eat dinner.

“He loved you. He really did.”

They visited as often as they could. His grandfather was always happy to see them.

Daehyun is thoughtful. He has that look on his face he gets when he wants to ask something, but he doesn’t know how.

“What is it?” Yongguk nudges, taking in how Daehyun fidgets and worries his lower lip between his teeth.

“Does that mean… he left all of this to me, too? Not that I wanted it, just… I was really surprised.”

“Everything that’s mine is yours, too, Daehyunnie.”

Daehyun blushes.

That night, they make love. Daehyun comes to him, he wants it, but asks if it’s alright to. Yongguk discovers how much he needed to feel so close to him, to slip into his familiar heat again, to inhale his scent so intimately. Daehyun flowers under his touches like the roses in the garden and Yongguk finds new layers to his love to fall into.

He’s anchored.

***

Day-32 on Xoturn and they plant new roses in the garden—red, with white in the middle.

Daehyun smiles a lot and Yongguk begins to smile more, too. Daehyun’s mourning process is different than Yongguk’s. Where Yongguk is darkness, Daehyun is light. Even though the older can still distinguish the clouds of sadness in his lover’s eyes from time to time, Daehyun still is happiness personified, holding Yongguk from falling in the pits of despair.

“He wouldn’t want us to let this stop our lives,” he says as his fingers caress the petals of a rose. Yongguk agrees.

Daehyun loves it here and he spends his days in the garden, caring for the flowers and the plants, singing to them, dancing between them. Sometimes, Yongguk joins him, though his singing voice could never hold a candle to Daehyun’s and both their dancing skills need considerable improvement. But Yongguk remembers how his grandfather taught him about the plants and how happy and proud he was of them. Now, the memories don’t bring as much pain as they did before.

He doesn’t feel like a stranger trapped in a familiar environment anymore.

Daehyun gets dirt all over himself and his skin turned shades darker from the extensive days spent in the sun. His hair is ruffled, but his ears still stick out, pointy and soft. The tip of his tail swings as he walks through the plants, his sweet voice rising, pulling Yongguk in like a calling.

Yongguk takes his hand and kisses it, kisses his face and his ears as Daehyun giggles a lot and blushes. He’s laid on the grass and Yongguk’s body hovers above his, strong and warm and secure. They slot against each other, mouths hungry and hot. They both get dirty and messy, but Daehyun smiles a happy smile and he tucks himself under Yongguk’s chin and it’s then that Yongguk decides that paradise may not be perfect, but the being in his arms is.

***

They’ve installed a hammock in the garden and Yongguk watches the leaves of grass swaying in the slow breeze. Daehyun sleeps in his arms with a quiet purr, tail curled up around them, ears twitching now and then.

When he thinks of home, Yongguk thinks less and less of the planet they left behind to come here and more of this place as he used to when he was a child. He’d missed the white house with the large front porch and the wide, perfumed garden in the back. It’s the same, but with a dash of something different. It’s Daehyun chirping in the kitchen in the mornings, dragging him out of bed and down the stairs, it’s lazy mornings sometimes, when none of them wants to get out and face the new day, it’s falling asleep together on the bed.

It’s perfect.

He misses his grandfather still, every day, and some nights he goes out in the garden to talk to him, where he feels his presence the most. At first it is painful, weeping in silence and drying his tears on his own. He never wants to wake Daehyun, to make the other go through this with him more than he already has to. But with time, Yongguk’s monologues become sprinkled with smiles and though the pain of loss lingers, it has now turned into acceptance.

Daehyun stirs and wakes, his eyes blinking at him drowsily.

“What time is it?” he asks, followed by a yawn.

“I don’t know,” Yongguk admits.

Daehyun smiles and rises, stretching as he goes.

“I think it’s time I made us some food.”

Yongguk smiles. Daehyun always seems to be thinking about food.

“Come, you need to eat, too.”

Daehyun’s hand drags him inside, a small smile still playing on his lips.

***

It’s been almost two months and they’ve seeped into this place and this place seeped into their lives in return.

Settling down, for Yongguk, always proved to be the hardest. At home, he had reasons to stay behind for—his grandfather, whose stock of wisdom and knowledge seemed infinite to him even as he grew up. However, through the stories and the extensive library his grandfather offered to him, Yongguk came to know different worlds, different places—he started to crave seeing those places, rather than just reading about them.

When it came time to leave for the first time, he did so without looking back too much. He still had his roots there, but he could grow, he could walk, he was not conditioned to one single place. His grandfather had always been supportive and encouraged him, even. He always said the Universe is so vast, you should see as much as you can of it if you have the chance.

So, his adventures began. He’d made sure to take on jobs that allowed him a flexible schedule and a decent living at the same time. He fared well, did well for himself. When it got time to leave and fly to a new place, he did so without regrets. He came to appreciate all the worlds he got to see, but he did so while keeping in mind there are so many others for him to explore.

Then, he’d met Daehyun.

Finding love hadn’t been high on his priority list. When he read stories about it in his grandfather’s oldest books, love seemed hard to attain and even harder to keep. How was he supposed to know who the right person is and when is the right time to settle down? His grandfather said that when you meet them, when you meet that person, you just know. Love at first sight? To Yongguk, that seemed such an antiquated concept, that he refused something like that could happen to him, despite his grandfather insisting that’s what he felt when he met his grandmother.

And yet, when Daehyun came into his life, everything changed. Maybe the fluttering in his stomach and the sweet dizziness in his head was what love at first sight feels like. Yongguk doesn’t know. All he knows is that he smiled the hardest when Daehyun accepted to go on a date with him.

They just fit.

It made Yongguk think of settling down, for once. He did so. Daehyun became the world he wanted to explore.

“Do you want to stay here, Daehyunnie?” Yongguk asks as they lay in the sun, watching the clouds move.

“Yes,” Daehyun replies, with no moment of silence in between.

***

Nights on his home planet always had a distinct sound to them, something he couldn’t find anywhere else. He’d admit that’s what he missed the most in his travels, being able to go out back in the garden, sit back and breathe in the perfume of the roses while watching the myriad of stars populating the canopy.

Daehyun had fallen asleep on the couch while zapping through the channels on the holovid. Nothing else can beat the sensation of keeping close to a warm and fragrant Daehyun as he’d curl around him in his sleep, but this time, he felt something akin to a calling in the quiet stillness. He disentangled himself from his lover with care, without resisting the urge to peck a flickering ear, and he went outside into the night.

Under Daehyun’s attentive care, the garden blooms and thrives, saved from decay and unjust perish. Even in the dark night, his eyes can still distinguish the vibrant red of the roses that look so pretty against Daehyun’s golden skin. He smiles to himself.

“He really did a wonderful job in here,” he starts talking, walking down the narrow alley that separates the rows of flowers. “You were right. He’s the only one who can provide the special care this garden needs. I only helped a little. He should take all the credit for it.”

“He really did do a wonderful job.” A foreign voice comes from behind him, making him jump. As he turns around, a silhouette materializes from between the plants and bushes. It’s too dark for Yongguk to make out any features, but he does see the contour of pointy, triangular ears, and a long tail trailing behind.

It’s not Daehyun.

“Who are you?” he asks. “What do you want?”

It’s strange, but he does not feel threatened, almost as if he already knows this faceless person who came out of the blue. However, it’s still startling to find a new presence in their home after so much time of being just the two of them.

“We should go inside to talk.” His voice, husky and low, not familiar at all, but Yongguk finds himself nodding, trusting nothing will go wrong.

***

Inside, under the clear light, Yongguk and Daehyun inspect with wide and shameless eyes the stranger who joined them in their living room.

“My name is Himchan,” he says.

His hair is jet black and so are his ears and his tail. Blacker than the night, blacker than anything they’d ever seen.

“You’re a Blaque,” Daehyun whispers in awe. “I’ve never seen one before.”

“Not many of us left.” Himchan’s smile is sad. “We were sought after by slave traders and owners, you see. During the Rebellion, many of us perished.”

Daehyun’s hand finds Yongguk’s and squeezes, hard. The eldest picks on the accelerated pulse, so he runs a soothing thumb over his knuckles. Himchan regards the gesture with a discreet eye, but Daehyun catches it.

“I—lost my parents then,” he says with an exhale, wounds that were thought to be sealed long ago pulsing in pain.

Himchan nods in sad understanding. “We were always a rare breed,” he continues, looking in the distance. “Masters and traders looked to breed us. We were very expensive. We still are.”

Daehyun and Yongguk look shocked. Himchan smiles a sad smile again.

“I forgot you two come from Kolea. That’s one of the most peaceful planets that could ever exist. But in other places, some you may have never heard of, slavery still thrives. The Rebellion managed to abolish it in most places, but not everywhere. I come from that ‘not-everywhere’.”

“How do you know where we’re from?” Yongguk asks quietly.

“Your grandfather,” Himchan answers simply. At Yongguk’s quirk of an eyebrow, Himchan continues, “I was hiding when he found me. I didn’t even realize I was trespassing in his garden. He took me in, he helped me. He said nobody will ever think of looking in the house of an old man. And nobody ever did.”

Yongguk smiles a little at that.

Himchan goes on, “He was my friend and I was his. He told me all about you and it’s like I already know you. It’s strange.” He smiles, but then it fades until it turns to something thoughtful and bittersweet. He looks at Yongguk. “He wasn’t alone when he passed away. I was with him. He had a friend by his side.”

His grandfather had not many fears, but he feared being alone on his last moments. Yongguk is relieved to know the man had a friendly face by his side as he passed away.

“I’m happy you were.”

“In his will, when he mentioned the garden’s ‘special needs’, I think he referred to me. Sometimes, when it’s warm outside, I like to sleep in the garden.”

“Don’t you have a room in the house?” Daehyun asks.

“I do. It’s one of the first things I was offered in here.”

“And why didn’t you come to us earlier?” Daehyun asks again. “I’m sure you miss sleeping on a bed.”

At that, Himchan smiles, but wider this time, giving them time to appreciate his handsome features.

“I do miss sleeping in a bed,” he admits. “The flowers are lovely. But I miss my bed. I guess it took me so long to come out of my hiding because I still didn’t know whether I could really trust you. The old man told me only good things about you, but I still had my doubts. You’d just lost your grandfather, Yongguk, and you, Daehyun, had gone through this with him, too. He loved you very much and I know you loved him, too. You wouldn’t be here if you didn’t.” He pauses to look at his hands, for a second looking ashamed of something. “My self-preservation instincts kicked in. Trust does not come easily with me. But watching you—“ at the sight of the frowns on their faces, his eyes go wide. “I didn’t—spy on you. I just—needed to make sure I could trust you.”

“That’s still spying,” Daehyun protests with a pout. His face then goes red. “What exactly did you watch?”

“I never stayed to watch anything inappropriate, I promise!” Himchan is quick to assure and the look on his face spells nothing but honesty. “I did see enough to be able to tell that you love each other so much. The way you look at each other, it’s beautiful. And you stayed here, groomed the garden, and I guess I decided I could trust you. I hope I’m not mistaken.”

“You’re not,” both of them say at the same time and Daehyun giggles cutely.

“I know it’s a lot to take in—“

“It really isn’t,” Daehyun interrupts with vehemence and Yongguk nods in unison.

“Would you like to retake your room?”

“But maybe you’d like some dinner, first,” Daehyun suggests.

A slow smile graces Himchan’s features.

“I’d love that.”

***

Yongguk gapes in awe when Himchan reveals the location of his room in the house. It is neatly hidden behind a bookshelf in the library, one that opens when you pull on a certain book.

“None of the other rooms felt safe enough for me at first. They were too open, too prone to someone breaking in and getting me. So he made this for me,” Himchan explains.

The room is not too large, but it’s cozy, and when Himchan sits on the bed, he fits in perfectly with the decor.

“I had no idea there were any secret rooms in this house,” Yongguk speaks.

“Every big house has at least one secret room,” Himchan smiles. “But he told me he never used it, because he never had anything to hide.”

“Until you,” Yongguk says.

Daehyun elbows him in the ribs.

Himchan stifles a laugh. “That’s okay, he’s right. Although I was on a slavery free planet, I still couldn’t trust anyone. I still needed to hide. Bad people are everywhere.”

There are so many things Daehyun wants to ask him, but instead he says, “I bet you’re tired. We should leave you to sleep.”

***

“This is so strange,” Yongguk admits one day as they tend to the plants. Himchan is in the library, the place that seems to be his favourite in the house. Despite claiming he loves to sleep in the garden, Himchan would rather stay in the house during the day, favouring the outside after the sun had set. “My grandfather never told me anything about him.”

“It wasn’t safe, Yongguk.”

“I know, but—my grandfather never kept anything from me.”

Yongguk seems disappointed. All Daehyun can say is, “It wasn’t safe.”

He bends to pluck some dandelions. When he comes up, he has one arm full of yellow flowers.

“You know he’s not lying to us,” Daehyun says, tucking a flower behind Yongguk’s ear and smiling. “I feel it and you can feel it, too.”

Yongguk nods with a sigh. “Still, there are so many things about him we don’t know.”

“We know enough for now,” Daehyun caresses the side of his face. “Probably he doesn’t have many happy memories to share with us, so he’d rather keep to himself for now. He said trust doesn’t come easily with him and that’s understandable. It took me a while to trust you, too, remember?”

“Yeah, I guess you’re right.”

Daehyun smiles. “Of course I am. Now, let’s go find a vase for these flowers.”

***

Himchan reads a lot. Yongguk would watch him sometimes, particularly fond of how his expression changes in tune with what he reads—a furrow between his brows, a crinkle of his eyes or fingers that quickly brush away welling tears.

In certain lights, his fur shines in blue shades. He offers his help in the kitchen and he does chores around the house. As time passes by, he smiles more and more and he opens, revealing a talkative and playful side to him. It’s hard not to be taken with him, with how he whispers in the garden with Daehyun, how his laugh fills a room, and how affectionate he can be at times.

There are things Himchan would rather not talk about still, but it’s become clear to both Daehyun and Yongguk that they don’t need to know his past to be certain of who he is.

“Your grandfather would be proud of what you’ve done,” Himchan tells Yongguk one day, coming outside and sitting by his side.

“You helped, too.”

“Yeah, after you did all the hard work.”

They both smile and silence falls over them. Yongguk is not that much of a talkative person, which can make him feel uncomfortable around other people, but he’s pleasantly surprised that’s not the case with Himchan. Daehyun likes to talk a lot so he fills the silence, though he knows when to be quiet, too, but Himchan seems to like his quiet moments nearly as much as Yongguk does, though he appears to have the gift of making words come out of Yongguk as well.

At the sound of a repressed sob, Yongguk turns his head to Himchan in shock.

“What’s wrong?” he asks as Himchan wipes at his eyes with quick hands in hopes that this incident will pass forgotten.

“It’s nothing,” he says. Yongguk’s gaze does not waver and Himchan sighs, realizing there is no way for him to escape this. “I just miss him. Nobody has ever been this good to me before. Until you.” His chin quivers and now he’s fully crying behind his hands.

Yongguk feels like crying, too, because he still misses his grandfather an awful lot, though he had managed to accept the loss and somehow, Himchan’s presence makes it feel like he’s still here with them.

He’s not good at comforting people, so he has no idea what to do, what Himchan wants him to do. He eventually settles for touching and squeezing his shoulder, but Himchan flings himself into his arms, clutching at him with desperation. It takes Yongguk aback; they’ve never been this close before, but slowly, his arms fit around Himchan and as they weep together, Yongguk discovers how comforting this is. It doesn’t feel weird at all to be hugging Himchan and he wonders why they hadn’t done this before.

Himchan proved to be open in his affections, but he always expresses this side of him around Daehyun the most. The latter, never ashamed to show others how much he cares about them, allows Himchan to ruffle his hair, swing his arm around his shoulders and Yongguk had seen them holding hands on numerous occasions. With Yongguk, however, Himchan proves to be a little bit more reserved, though he’d brush his hand against his on what seemed like perfectly accidental touches and his head would fall on his shoulder, asleep as they’d watch the holovid or read something. Both of them like to use him as a pillow, so Yongguk would often find himself with his shoulders occupied by peacefully asleep Himchan and Daehyun. He never minds it, though.

“I’m so happy you’re here,” Himchan says as he pulls away, his eyes red and cheeks lined with tears. “You and Daehyun both. You have no idea. I was so scared of being alone on my own again. I don’t think I would’ve survived. But I feel safe with you.”

Yongguk knows that by the last statement, Himchan means he feels safe with him specifically, which makes his chest swell. Himchan is close to him, their noses millimeters away from touching. It’s not uncomfortable at all, but sweet and warm. Yongguk takes in the exquisite curve of Himchan’s eyes and the bow shape of his lips. He leans in to place a kiss at the corner of his mouth, but Himchan turns his head and their lips touch.

They’re kissing.

It’s slow, like they have all the time in the world, and sweet. It’s been a long time since Yongguk had kissed anyone else besides Daehyun, but Himchan’s lips fit perfectly against his and it feels right.

“I always thought of doing that.” Himchan looks at him with sparkling eyes after they part. Yongguk kind of wants to kiss him again, but Himchan’s face changes. “I—Probably shouldn’t have done that. You love Daehyun, right? This was stupid.”

He scrambles to his feet and disappears inside the house before Yongguk can say anything.

***

A couple of hours pass and the day gets darker when Yongguk comes inside, too, his heavy heart jumping in his chest.

He still has the memory of the kiss, of Himchan’s lips against his. It doesn’t make him feel guilty and he doesn’t know what to make out of it. Kissing Himchan felt right, as it is kissing Daehyun. But the thought of Daehyun makes his insides crumble. He does love him, he loves him more than anything else, so why did he kiss Himchan?

His steps take him in the living room where he finds Daehyun and Himchan asleep on the couch, curled up around each other. Their tails are entwined and they look peaceful and happy. Yongguk blinks in surprise.

Daehyun stirs and wakes, a slow smile pulling at his lips when he sees Yongguk.

“Guk,” he calls, stretching his hand. “Come here.”

Yongguk kneels in front of the couch. Himchan wakes, too, blinking at them with hazy eyes.

“Himchan told me about the kiss.” Yongguk opens his mouth to speak, but Daehyun covers it with one finger. “But it’s fine. I kissed him too and it felt really nice.”

Now, Yongguk is baffled. Daehyun picks up on it and takes his hand into his. He presses a kiss to it, eyes closed, with all of his love.

“I think we could make this work,” Daehyun speaks, looking at him. “Don’t you?”

Yongguk looks at Himchan who is now fully awake and looking back at him, his head resting on Daehyun’s chest. He seems happy there, like he belongs.

“It doesn’t feel wrong,” Daehyun continues. “It feels right.”

Himchan watches him in expectation and it’s then that Yongguk realizes they have already made up their minds about it and they’re waiting for Yongguk to do the same.

He thinks of kissing Daehyun, of how his stomach does flips even after all this time. He thinks of kissing Himchan, of the tingle in his limbs, and it’s not close to what he feels with and for Daehyun, but it can near that. Then, he thinks of the two of them kissing, a thought that makes him blush.

A grin stretches on Daehyun’s lips, cat-like and bewitching, knowing what Yongguk thinks about. It only makes him blush harder, but he’s not that ashamed, after all.

“It does feel right,” he agrees.

When they hug him, everything in the world appears beautiful and perfect.

That night, they share the same bed.


End file.
